The Second Coming

Chapter 1: The Boy Next Door

It was a cold, cold, day in the depths of Partial Hell, a 9 million kilometer crevice between two extremely long mountain ranges. The cheery orange fires that surrounded Partial Hell were noticeably absent, as the flames had turned blue. The absence was most noted at the very beginning of the crevice, or perhaps it was the end. Gugumala, the patron saint of all dark lords, was huddled on one side of Partial Hell, shivering in his large, furry, purple parka and matching furry, purple serpent slippers. It was a rather pitiful sight, considering that even Voldemort bowed down to this Gugumala.

"Apprentice!" he shouted, poking his bald head out of the parka and allowing his teeth to chatter a bit. A few seconds later, a muscular Indian boy in sunglasses appeared in front of him.

"You called me, dude?" the Indian asked, pulling out his clipboard and a pencil. Unlike Gugumala, he was only wearing a white tank top and swimming trunks.

"Yes, apprentice. What do you notice about the atmosphere?"

"Aw, dude! It's sweet! The, like, fires are all blue!"

"Right. And what does that mean?" Gugumala asked, as patiently as possible. This was his newest apprentice, but they were all more or less idiots. He'd asked for an Indian priest who knew his scriptures well, and they'd given him this... this abomination of a human being... this fool... this dude. They'd given him Gopi, a 15 year old surfer from California.

"Uh... blue fires. Don't worry, dude, I remember it. It means that, like, a new dark authority is like starting. Tight!"

"Right... now, these individuals are your age, so I wish for you to observe them."

"Whoa! You mean, like, I get to go down to the dude's place and chill with them?" Gopi asked, excitedly. His hopes were crushed.

"NO. I will send one of my more advanced students once the time is right," Gugumala spat, shuddering. The consequences would be disastrous if Gopi went anywhere near... well, anyone. So Gopi sat and did what most apprentices do; he waited with a sense of foreboding, while the new dark authorities blissfully went about their mundane daily tasks, unaware of what was to come.

***

Vanessa had never met anyone quite like Lucius Malfoy XXV. True, he was a Lucius Malfoy, but in the same way, he was just another Lucius Malfoy. Everyone on the dark side overlooked his Weasley blood because his grandfather, Lucius Malfoy XXIV was the Dark Lord's right hand man. Everyone on the light side overlooked his Malfoy blood because his uncle Ron was a member of that legendary trio. In all his life, Lucius had never once been praised, but in all his life, Lucius had never once been punished. No one ever especially noticed him because they saw him so much that he was just a part of the surroundings. In the same way, he his presence was always there in the back of everyone's mind. Lucius, being the oldest of three children, was given a lot of responsibility. But as the child of a filthy rich family, he was also quite spoiled. Lucius was someone and no one at the same time.

And at that time, the night before the start of his fifth year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Lucius was napping inside. Outside, it was raining blood.

***

"AAARGH!" snapped Vanessa Crabbe, banging her fist on her handcrafted mahogany desk. The clock on her wall read two AM and her mountainous load of undone summer homework was no closer to finishing itself than it was at had been at one AM.

She scowled angrily out her window, squinting across the yards at her peacefully sleeping neighbor, the aforementioned Lucius Malfoy.

"Verás!" she muttered, magnifying his window. She could see his unpacked clothes and schoolbooks scattered around the room and a sheaf of parchment peeking out from under the bed. Bingo.

"Verás!" she said again. The text on the paper was now quite visible. In abysmally messy handwriting, the title read "Gorbachak and the Goblin Rebellions of 1034."

With the frightening ease and accuracy that came from frequent violations of the law, Vanessa flooed into Lucius' room, took the parchment, and flooed back, completely ready to copy it, and completely unready to be caught by her mother. It was alright though. It was absolutely a miracle that Lucius slept through the entire process, and Vanessa would rather be caught by her mother than by her neighbor.

"Vanessa Crabbe, WHAT are you doing awake at two AM? DO you not realize that there is school tomorrow, early in the morning?! HOW do you expect to get there ON TIME?" snapped the completely enraged Sakura Crabbe, mother of Vanessa and wife of Vincent. She was a petite Japanese woman with one of those shady pasts that no one really knows about, but thinks they know about, therefore no questions are asked. To Vanessa, she was just Mother, the nuisance that exists to nag.

"Godd... Mother, no need to get so STRESSED..." Vanessa said mockingly. The scroll was hastily hidden behind her back. She was so busy worrying about being discovered that she didn't notice when lightning flashed outside and her mother's eyes widened slightly.

"Oh... yes... of course... no reason to worry... well... sleep soon..." her mother muttered quickly, smiling in an odd way and backing out of the room.

"Weird..." Vanessa said, shaking her head. But she had five feet to copy and no time to think.

***

"Vince! Vince! Wake up!" Sakura Crabbe cried, shaking her husband violently. It was a rather difficult task, considering she was petite and he was something of a large rock.

"Eh.... Ah... 'Kura?" he grunted.

"He's here," she said, regaining her composure. Her husband crinkled his beetling brows.

"Who's where?" he asked, frowning. Mrs. Crabbe took a deep breath.

"He's back! I felt the mark burn for a second!"

"..."

"It's a full moon night... and it's raining blood. This is exactly what that Trelawney prophesized would happen!"

"... What would happen?"

"Trelawney prophesized that it would rain blood on a full moon night," she explained patiently.

"Why?"

"... How should I know why the old bat- Oh. That why. Well... I think it was something like... the blood of an innocent would be shed... absorbed by the earth... and it would ignite the fires of hell... and bring back demonic something or the other..." she muttered, half verbatim from memory. For those who had heard it firsthand, the prophecy was something they would never forget.

"Oh."

"We should tell Millicent and Marcus... and those Notts, Anastasia and Theodore... and Ginny and Draco... and Pansy and-"

"Sakura?"

"What?"

"Go to sleep. The Flints are on a cruise, where the fireplaces aren't connected to floo, an owl may get intercepted, and we don't know where they are, so apparition is pointless. The Notts are probably in league with the demonic something or others anyway, so no point telling them. The Malfoys are neutral... you know how Draco is, if it was something urgent, he'd start going to work all the time and looking half-dead. And as for Pansy... no one would mind if anything happened to her."

There was dead silence for a moment, and Mrs. Crabbe looked at her husband with an affectionate half-smile. In his rare moments of half-wakefulness, he was absolutely brilliant.

"And what about Zabini?" she asked, half-teasingly. But he was already asleep.

***

Meanwhile, the tough soil of a Yorkshire vegetable garden was absorbing the blood of an innocent.

"Sod off, arse-wipe!" shouted the not-so-innocent James Granger, wiping his bloody nose. The thick red liquid dripped off his fingertips and onto the ground, disappearing rapidly. Lightning flashed and thunder resounded through the sky. Angry storm clouds covered the moon.

"Hear that?" asked a burly muggle, cracking his knuckles. After a moment, the group of toadies behind him tried to chuckle but ended up squeaking as they heard more thunder.

The boys were standing in front of a decrepit old house with a wooden sign hanging above the porch. It read St. Brutus' Summer Center for Criminally Insane and Unstable Orphans.

"Let's get him!" the Muggles said eagerly, heading towards James Granger. James took a step back, and another step back, and another step back. In seven-eighths of a second, James slipped on the wet compost heap and fell, face down, into a pile of rotten tomatoes. His nose continued to bleed.

It was times like these that James Granger saw his life flash before his eyes. Until he was eleven, he'd always lived in a nice orphanage around Little Hangleton where people were quite warm, friendly, and spilled tea was something he feared most. Back then, he'd never cared much about his parents. He was content with knowing that his mother lived long enough to name him and then he supposed that she died. He supposed that his father died too. But then the owls began to arrive. The frantic searches and phone calls to all the Granger's in the phonebook began. Granger, unfortunately, was a quite common surname. And more owls arrived. The kind folks at Little Hangleton showed their true nature and sent him off to the hell hole that was St. Brutus' Summer Center for Criminally Insane and Unstable Orphans, the center that housed orphans who attended St. Brutus' correctional facility during the school year. James wondered why he was there when he attended Hogwarts during the school year. He supposed that there was no Hogwarts Summer Center for orphaned students of witchcraft and wizardry, so St. Brutus' summer center would have to do. And after a few snippets of his recent fourth Hogwarts life, his life finished flashing before him.

At that moment, an emaciated man in a plaid shirt and overalls came out onto the porch holding a pitchfork.

"Laddies, HUP!" he said, banging the bottom of the pitchfork on the porch. Lightning flashed again, lighting up the sharp metal edges of the man's pitchfork.

All the boys, including James Granger and the burly one, gulped and headed back towards the house. No one in the institution was quite as criminally insane or unstable as Mrs. Martha, the emaciated man in overalls.

Lightning struck a rotten tomato, and everywhere in England, if only for seven-eighths of a second, it rained blood.

***

It was with a heavy heart and dark circles under her eyes that Vanessa said goodbye to her parents and climbed on to the Hogwarts express, only to find that there were no more compartments left.

That morning, as a result of the magical storm from the night before, most appliances had broken down, and in the Crabbe and Malfoy households, magic ceased to work.

Vanessa and the Malfoys, Lucius, his sister Numina, and his brother Ralphie, walked quickly down the corridors searching for empty compartments.

Numina found her normal posse of hair tossing Slytherin fourth years and joined them. Ralphie, unfortunately, was forced to sit with some other scared first years who looked like they'd be sorted into Hufflepuff.

"You'd think they'd have space somewhere," Lucius grumbled, scowling. He was lazily following a frantic Vanessa who was opening doors everywhere.

The train lurched and began moving. Vanessa almost fell, but Lucius just balanced himself by holding onto a doorknob.

"Fools..." he muttered. After ten minutes, they made it to the very end of the train, to the compartment where the losers usually sat. Vanessa opened the door to find James Granger and Jon Weasley swapping chocolate frog cards.

Jon looked up at Lucius and grinned, "Hey cousin!" His white teeth contrasted sharply with the mass of freckles over his face and the mop of red hair on his head. Vanessa had to look away.

Lucius' frown lessened and he nodded, walking in. Vanessa followed him, sighing.

Lucius gazed out the window and fell asleep while Jon and James continued trading chocolate frog cards. Vanessa took out her homework... or rather, Lucius' homework, and began copying it.

"What's that?" Jon asked, conversationally. Vanessa looked at him with the disgusted air of someone who'd found a large slug in their salad. But she responded anyway, as if it was painfully obvious... which it was.

"Lucius' goblin rebellion essay," she said, matter-of-factly.

"And... that?"

"Lucius' Moonstone essay for Snape." Vanessa flicked her wand and made a duplicate of the moonstone essay. She flicked it again to transpose the handwriting into her own. And she flicked it again to return both essays safely into Lucius' book bag. Jon frowned.

"Don't the teachers catch you for that?" he asked again, in his annoying conversational way.

"No..." she snapped, rather annoyed to be stuck with stupid Gryffindors. This Jon person didn't look like he was going to stop talking any time soon, but she didn't have the energy to shut him up.

"Look, you just soak your wand in Retracing Potion and as long as you have it with you, the ministry can't trace your use of magic out of school... even if you use spells, or apparate, or do whatever," she explained, yawning. Jon seemed to have the attention span of a hummingbird. He and his disgusting mudblood of a friend were now playing gobstones.

Vanessa was adding on to Lucius' essays. To put it simply, the quality was even worse than the handwriting. Vanessa supposed she spent more time copying them than Lucius had spent writing them. Actually, it didn't look like Lucius had spent time on them... She groaned and mentally promised herself to keep up with the homework during the upcoming fifth year.

***

In Yorkshire, a pile of rotten tomatoes exploded.